Swatch: Sinful Colors Pull Over

Over the weekend I spent some quality time with my little broski....who is learning to drive. In my family, the driving situation is this: my mom and dad both drive large vehicles (a truck for my dad and an SUV for my mom) whereas my sister and I both drive smaller cars (a sedan for Steph and a sports coup for me). Anyway, back to the point: My brother recently got his learner's permit, which means he can now learn to drive. And because I'm older than 21, I'm allowed to drive with him! I had promised that I would let him drive my car, seeing as my car--in my (and his) opinion--is the coolest of them all. Let me just ask, have any of you taught someone to drive? I should have gotten my parents a fruit basket or a bottle of wine or a week at the spa when they let me learn to drive. That stuff is nerve wracking! I hope I didn't get any gray hairs (just kidding)! I mean, handing my keys over to another driver is one thing but being in a car with someone who has never driven before and the speed of 15 feels like you're going 35 miles per hour is just a tad more stressful. I will say this though, my little bro can parallel park like a champ even on his first try. I'm pretty sure I told him "pull over" a few times and that leads me to my post of today. I was rummaging through my polish and found this gorgeous springtime yellow by the name of Pull Over. How perfect is that? #Winning!

Toetally Tuesday - I love Inversion!

As I mentioned not too long ago, I'm in a serious polka dot frenzy over here. It's such a simple design and you can have sooo much fun with it. Between changing up the colors, the location and size of the dots, how many you put on one nail...the possibilities are literally endless. I sometimes think I should have named this blog Nikki's Dotted Tips and Toes. I decided to stick with black and white today because I'm so chic and sophisticated. Also, a Toetally Tuesday bonus: I painted my toes and then thought it would look really cool on my fingers too. Too bad it's not nicer weather so people could see my tips AND toes. My piggies are safe in their flats, with the pedicure hidden from view :( but my fingernails are out in the open. I usually don't include a manicure with Toetally Tuesday but with these two designs how could I not?!

My skin seems way too shiny in this photo. Dislike. I swear I'm not a grungeball.

Hey everybody, come see how good I look!

Bonus points to you if you can identify the movie quoted in my post title. But seriously, I don't think I've ever in the however many years I've been blogging taken a better photo of my nails. There's no almost no glare from the light and it's almost entirely in focus. I'm a little impressed seeing as I have no photography knowledge. Today's manicure is another simple polka dot manicure (I love polka dots...as you can probably remember from my first post ever, this post, this post, this post, and this post, among others).

I used China Glaze Tart-y for the Party and Orly Liquid Vinyl.

I inverted the colors for my ring finger accent nail and I think they look pretty sharp.

Happy Birthday S!!

Today's manicure is to celebrate a certain best college friend of mine who is turning 24 today and is wayyy too far away for me to buy her a drink or celebrate with her in person. Yes, I'm talking about you S. Happy birthday! I decided to do a mani that is inspired by one of our favorite quotes by one of our favorite movies....Bridesmaids:

Hahaha, I can't look at that without cracking up! So many quotable lines in that movie!

Totally not typical birthday nails but....whatevs. It's perfect.

Toetally Tuesday - Color Smash

Yesterday, I featured this design on my fingernails and told you all how I thought they didn't go together. I guess I needed a second example to make up my mind so I added them on my toes. I think the colors look fine together but instead of China Glaze Tart-y for the Party (the light purple) I probably could have used a pink or something. Who knows. It's Toetally Tuesday so on to the toes!

Thanks for looking!

P.S. It's April Fools Day today and I find myself in the unfortunate predicament of not having any prank ideas to pull. I guess that's a good thing though, law school probably frowns on April Fools Day pranks...

Color Smash

Have you ever painted your nails to finish them, look at them, and realize that you've used colors that just don't seem to get along? That sort of happened to me today when I painted these little lovelies. I'm on a serious polka dot binge right now (but that's never a problem) and I can't get enough of it! There's so much you can do with such a simple design how could you not expect me to go crazy with my colors?!

So, what do you think? 

Do these colors go hand in hand or should I keep them in separate Helmer drawers?

P.S. In case you noticed (or didn't notice), I did change the little square "Celebrate National Nail Polish Day" photo in the top left corner today. After talking to another lovely blogger, I realized that I had confined my celebration to America (oops!). One of my favorite things about this blog is how many international pals visit my blog and of course I want to include them in my celebration of all things mani. More info about the International Nail Polish Day will be coming up but it's really more of a no-rules, do-anything-you-like thing that I'm hoping more than just I will participate in. Message me if you have specific questions but really it's just all about sharing our nail polish habit and enjoyment.

Collab with NailsNoob: Inspired by Favorite Ed Norton Flick

I'm so excited for today's post! I have to be honest, I painted these on Friday and held onto it to post in collaboration with the fabulous blog known as NailsNoob! Once we found out we both were huge movie-addicts, we decided a manicure inspired by a movie was long overdue and we decided to do a collab post inspired by our favorite Edward Norton film. So for me I went with the Italian Job, a movie about a heist where Edward Norton starts as a good guy and then quickly becomes the movie's antagonist (don't worry I didn't spoil anything)! If you haven't seen the movie, all you need to know to understand my manicure is the movie poster I've included to the right. My manicure is inspired by the three mini coopers used in the movie with the two yellow lines seen in the poster. This is what I came up with:

It's pretty simple and all so it's not that impressive. I used Orly Liquid Vinyl, Orly White Out, Sally Hansen Cherry Red, Kiss Brush On Nail Art Paint in White, Color Club Art Club in Yellow, and Orly Blue Suede for the look.

And now for the collaboration part of this collab: the fantastic manicure featured right now on Nails Noob:

How awesome are they?  Her Edward Norton film inspiration was Fight Club, a movie so intense I couldn't even come up with a good overview description. I mean, the first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club (I laughed when I saw that she says this in her post too). I guess I'll just have to say...it's a movie have to watch for yourself. Also, after you watch it you will never look at soap the same so fair warning! She said she's not proud of them but I think they're superb! I thought Fight Club was going to be so hard to come up with a design for and I'm really impressed with what she did with her manicure. Wayyyy more creative than mine design, that's for sure!

Be sure to comment if you have a favorite Ed Norton movie!

And go check out Nails Noob's post if you haven't already :)

Happy 24th Birthday sweets!

Today was my one and only's birthday!!Yep, Andrew turned 24 today so I decided to do a nail design. I quickly realized I had NO IDEA what sort of design to do (last year's design was so much better). I went with just something girly because I really wanted pink nails and well...I'm a girl. We had to celebrate his birthday last weekend because we live about an hour apart (stupid school, stupid work!)(can't wait to change that after I graduate) and I couldn't see him today. We decided to have a dinner and movie weekend (so so so much food it wasn't even funny) and it was nice to spend time with him. I hope he had a great day but I hate that he had to spend it alone :( No one should be a lone on their birthday you know? Here are the nails:

Girly right? I should have made the pink hearts like balloons. I used Zoya Dawn and Orly White Out for the design and, although I like the design, I should have used it for Valentine's Day instead of my love's birthday.

Inspired By: The Voice

Today's post is inspired by a piece of clothing seen on an episode of The Voice, a show where the judges select singers blindly and then have the singers perform with each other in knockout battles until a winner is crowned "the voice" at the end of the season. I love watching this show because the judges are hysterical. Between Adam Levine, Shakira, Usher, and Blake Shelton there are so many quirks and quips that come out during each episode and don't be surprised if you pee yourself from laughing (especially during the blind auditions). Anyway, the sweater(?) long-sleeved shirt worn by Adam Levine in this episode instantly spoke to me (saying "make this a nail design girl") and I got painting while I finished the episode. Not sure how I like the mix as a shirt but...looks good on my nails!

And even if you're not into singing shows like this....who can resist an attractive man on their TV? I mean, just check out Adam...the man can blue steel with the best of them...

Although to be honest if he were to look at me like that I'd probably be a little scared.

Evil Eye BundleMonster

When I was painting my nails today I wanted to pull out my Konad and BundleMonster plates and use some gorgeous spring-time blues. At first I just wanted to use this stamp design because I thought it looked cool and intense but then I realized the design sort of looks like the evil eye. I have an evil eye bracelet that I wear so I wanted to incorporate the bracelet into a photo for the blog. I really don't use many props in my blog photos so I figured why not. 

For the manicure, I painted all my nails China Glaze Highlight of My Summer and then stamped BundleMonster BM-223 in Orly Blue Suede (last seen here and here). 

Thanks for looking!